Whatever the strengths of the US university system – obviously many, given the preponderance of US universities at the top of world rankings – its fundamental weakness is the funding of student tuition fees. As a CNN commentator explains:

The first thing we need to do to get serious about student debt? Stop calling it “student debt.”

“College debt” or “education debt” might work. Anything but “student debt” — because not just students but entire families are paying the cost of our broken system for funding higher education.

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Case in point: The other day, one of the top stories on CNN.com was about two grieving parents who lost their child but are still stuck with her student loan bills.

This story represents so much about what is wrong with our system of financing higher education — not to mention our national priorities.

If these were federal student loans with lower interest rates, the amount the Masons owe might not have ballooned quite so much. More importantly, they would have access to repayment plans or even some token financial assistance. But theirs are private loans.

And if conservatives had not waged a war to defund higher education to pay for tax breaks for their favored donors, perhaps the Masons and others like them might have avoided this tragedy altogether.

Instead, our young people are graduating off a cliff. America’s global competitiveness is at risk. And our economy is struggling as families young and old neglect other purchases to pay down a combined more than $1 trillion in education debt.

Of course, this problem is solvable.

First of all, not allowing student loans to be discharged in bankruptcy was a blatant handout to the banking industry.

Democrats have been pushing to change this law for years. But even Wall Street’s allies in the Republican Party should be able to see that this provision is putting lenders’ profits over families’ pain.

Second, the private student loan industry must be reformed.

Lenders use deceptive marketing, sky-high interest rates and hidden fees to make big bucks off of kids trying to get an education. If protecting young people from exploitation is not a sexy election-year issue, I do not know what is.

Third, this debt crisis demands more than half-measures.

Federal student loans cannot be refinanced. Private loans are often inescapable scams. But the source of the problem is cuts to public education, which cause tuition to soar even as our paychecks stay the same.

Here is a prediction: In 2016, some candidate is going to “go big” on education debt. He or she will call out the Republicans in Congress who have blocked commonsense fixes, then go further.

A crackdown on deceptive lenders and out-of-control collection agencies would be just the start. Little would boost our economy more than forgiving debt outright. And then there is the big one: We could make all public colleges free with what we are already spending on hodgepodge federal financial assistance.

The candidate who proposes all that will win. Politicians already know that education debt is a top voting issue for young people. They are about to find out that it matters to their parents, too.

Van Jones is a co-host of CNN’s “Crossfire” . He is president and founder of Rebuild the Dream, an online platform focusing on policy, economics and media. He was President Barack Obama’s green jobs adviser in 2009. He is also founder of Green for All, a national organisation working to build a green economy.

See also

Rising college costs have pushed America’s student loan debt over the $1 trillion mark for the first time. That’s just one sign of the challenges that students and parents face as they navigate a sea of how-to-pay complexities. The rewards of earning a degree remain as high as ever, some economists say. But the risks of going into too much debt are also high. This article from the Christian Science Monitor illustrates the complexity facing individual students in navigating the system to fund tuition by way of a cocktail of scholarships and loans.

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The Scan is produced by Inter Mediate, a Melbourne based public policy consulting practice, with a focus on education and training issues, particularly higher education.
The Scan reviews topical issues in the tertiary education sector and places them in a broader context.